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<h1><a href="https://archiveofourown.org/works/25356688">Lost and Found</a> by <a class='authorlink' href='https://archiveofourown.org/users/virdant/pseuds/virdant'>virdant</a></h1>

<table class="full">

<tr><td><b>Category:</b></td><td>Captain America (Movies)</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Genre:</b></td><td>Alternate Universe - Canon Divergence, Alternate Universe - Ghosts, Character Death, Chinese Culture, Ghost Marriage, Happy Ending, M/M, Mediums</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Language:</b></td><td>English</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Status:</b></td><td>Completed</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Published:</b></td><td>2020-07-18</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Updated:</b></td><td>2020-07-18</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Packaged:</b></td><td>2021-05-05 08:01:15</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Rating:</b></td><td>Teen And Up Audiences</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Warnings:</b></td><td>Major Character Death</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Chapters:</b></td><td>1</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Words:</b></td><td>3,124</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Publisher:</b></td><td>archiveofourown.org</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Story URL:</b></td><td>https://archiveofourown.org/works/25356688</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Author URL:</b></td><td>https://archiveofourown.org/users/virdant/pseuds/virdant</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Summary:</b></td><td><div class="userstuff">
              <p>Sam became a medium to help. When a ghost named Steve comes to him, looking for a Bucky, of course he helps.</p>
            </div></td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Relationships:</b></td><td>James "Bucky" Barnes/Steve Rogers</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Comments:</b></td><td>13</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Kudos:</b></td><td>94</td></tr>

</table>

<a name="section0001"><h2>Lost and Found</h2></a>
<div class="story"><div class="fff_chapter_notes fff_head_notes"><b>Author's Note:</b><ul class="associations">
      <li>For <a href="https://archiveofourown.org/users/anisstaranise/gifts">anisstaranise</a>.</li>



    </ul><blockquote class="userstuff">
      <p>for anis, who asked for a <a href="https://twitter.com/anisstaranise/status/1284002644852240384">ghost marriage of indeterminate pairing</a>. here is a stucky ghost marriage for you. thank you for being such a lovely and wonderful friend. i am always happy to write about ghosts, even though i don't like ghosts.</p><p> </p><p>thank you to dana, for reading and assuring me that this was fine. &lt;3</p>
    </blockquote></div><div class="userstuff module">
    
    <p>“I lost him.”</p><p>Sam clutched his thermos of coffee with one hand and eyed the spluttering candles. They were flickering in the tell-tale sign of ghostly presence. He sighed. With the other hand, he reached for the Ouija board he kept under his desk. “You got a name?” he asked the ghost.</p><p>“Bucky.”</p><p>“Your name is Bucky?”</p><p>“Oh.” The ghost, barely a shimmer in the air, paused. Slowly, he took form: thin, pale and weedy. His cheeks were gaunt, like he’d died of starvation. Maybe he had. “Steve,” the ghost said. “My name is Steve.”</p><p>Sam nodded, drank some coffee—because what else could he do when a ghost had come to him, without being summoned. He’d come into his office, thermos of coffee in hand to start the day. He’d lit the candles, and then they’d started spluttering, immediately, in the familiar pattern of a ghost who had come to visit. A ghost who hadn’t been summoned, but had come on his own, to Sam.</p><p>“You said you lost him,” Sam prompted.</p><p>Steve, thin and pale, even as a ghost, settled before him. “Bucky,” he repeated.</p><p>“You lost Bucky.”</p><p>“There was a war,” Steve said, and Sam could see the faint hint of a helmet if he looked closely. “He went to fight in it but—he was drafted.”</p><p>Sam nodded. “Did he come back?”</p><p>“I don’t know. But he must have lived,” Steve said. “I haven’t found him here.”</p><p>Sam drank his coffee. It was getting cold faster than it should, thanks to Steve’s presence. “Listen, Steve, man. I’m a medium. I talk to dead people. This is more of a job for a detective or something—”</p><p>Steve shook his head. “I lost him,” he repeated, “I never should have.”</p><p>Sam took a deep breath. “You gotta give me something more than just a first name. A last name. Full name. Date of birth. Social security number…”</p><p>But Steve was fading, thin and pale, his skin turning transparent. “I lost him,” he said, again. “He hasn’t come here yet. He’d find me, if he was here.”</p><p>The candles blew out. Steve was gone. Sam sighed and drained the rest of his coffee.</p><p>It had gone cold.</p>
<hr/><p>As a medium, most of Sam’s clients were the living, looking to talk to the dead. He’d never gotten a ghost, looking for somebody still living. Ghosts certainly didn’t pay the rent.</p><p>But he hadn’t entered this career for the money. He’d entered for the chance to help. His hands were covered in enough blood, more than enough that he was haunted every time he walked down the streets. It was better to take the ghosts that haunted him and give peace to the living, then to let them keep haunting him without end.</p><p>So he set to work searching for Steve’s Bucky. He didn’t spend much time looking for a Bucky who had been drafted into the war. It was pretty easy to figure out that Bucky had been a nickname, not a first name. It was less easy to figure out who Steve was referring to, when he talked about Bucky.</p><p>But if Bucky was useless as a search, Steve was just as useless. It was too common of a name, and Steve had been thin and pale, barely visible against the candles when he had shown up. Sam hadn’t managed to get much identifying information from his appearance. All he knew was that Steve and Bucky had been alive during a war.</p><p>And, well. Sam stared grimly at his computer. </p><p>There were a lot of wars.</p><p>He had some clues. The war had been recent enough that Bucky could reasonably be alive. It was likely long enough ago that Bucky still being alive was a rarity among his peers. That didn’t narrow down the timeframe that much. There had been a lot of wars. He’d fought in one of them.</p><p>Sam sighed. His coffee was cold, and his only clue was a ghost.</p><p>Well, there was always a chance…</p>
<hr/><p>Natasha laughed at him for a whole minute before hanging up.</p><p>Sam sighed and went to light the candles.</p>
<hr/><p>Trying to summon a ghost when you only knew their first name was hard. Usually you needed some more connection—a family member, a loved one. Sam was haunted by enough ghosts that a summoning tended to dredge up those ghosts, instead of the ones his clients were asking for. </p><p>But summoning Steve was easy.</p><p>He slid into view as the candles spluttered. The room was thick with incense—Sam lit sticks of agarwood—and the smoke wreathed him as Steve took shape. Against the smoke, he seemed more substantial than before. Still faded, and tired. Still looking for Bucky.</p><p>“Steve,” Sam said.</p><p>“Did you find Bucky?”</p><p>“Not yet.” He had a hand on the Ouija board he kept in his desk, but Steve didn’t seem to need it. Not with a full manifestation like this. Sam, who was haunted by plenty of ghosts, but not the one that Steve was looking for, said, “I need more than that. A full name or something.”</p><p>Steve closed his eyes. “Bucky,” he said, slowly.</p><p>The dead lost pieces of himself, every year that they were forgotten. Without incense and offerings, They became little more than snatches of hunger wandering the afterlife. But Steve had retained enough of himself—enough of himself to remember Bucky, enough of himself to bring himself into the realm of the living with one request. It was one last tether, keeping him to the real world. Bucky.</p><p>“A name,” Sam urged. He’d entered this career to help. “I’ll help you find him. But I need to know more about him.”</p><p>Steve was quiet.</p><p>“Not a name,” Sam said. “A… tell me about Bucky.”</p><p>“He went to war.” Steve was pale and faded. “And he never came back.”</p><p>“How did you know him?”</p><p>“We grew up together.” The words were soft. Steve looked distant, as if he were seeing his own past. “In the tenements.”</p><p>Sam filed that away.</p><p>“We would get into fights, with other boys.” Steve’s voice was quiet. “Bucky would win. And then he left.”</p><p>“For the war?” Sam asked. “Which war was it?”</p><p>“Against the Nazis.”</p><p>World War II. Bucky could still be alive—there were WWII vets alive, now. He’d be old, though. But he could look him up, with his name. Natasha had connections. This was more than he’d had before.</p><p>“I tried to join, but they wouldn’t let me.”</p><p>“Why not?”</p><p>Steve shrugged. “Asthma.”</p><p>Sam squinted. He remembered the impression of a helmet last time Steve had showed up. He couldn’t see it now—Steve was still hazy and indistinct, even with the incense smoke giving him form. “You didn’t make it into the army at all?”</p><p>There was a moment of hesitation, and then Steve said, softly, “I didn’t make it.”</p><p>His ghost was, after all, so young.</p><p>Sam swallowed. “Tell me more about Bucky,” he said, but the scent of agarwood was beginning to fade, and with it so was Steve.</p><p>“Barnes,” Steve whispered, like the breath of air as the candles spluttered out. “His name. James. Barnes.”</p>
<hr/><p>James Buchanan Barnes, also known as Bucky Barnes, was declared Missing in Action in Germany during WWII.</p><p>Sam stared at the records and sighed.</p><p>Nothing could ever be easy, could it.</p><p>Sam lit the candles, lit the incense, played a chant in the background and let it fill the room with a low drone, and then sat down and called for James Buchanan Barnes.</p><p>When there was no reply, he tried for Bucky Barnes.</p><p>When there was still no reply, he stood up, doused the candles, and called Natasha.</p>
<hr/><p>This time, Natasha didn’t laugh.</p><p>“What name did you say?”</p><p>“James Buchanan Barnes,” Sam said.</p><p>“One second,” Natasha said, and then hung up.</p><p>Sam stared at his phone. Sometimes he wasn’t sure why he was still in contact with Natasha, other than the fact that she was an excellent medium and had resources that Sam couldn’t even imagine. He was still staring at his phone when it rang.</p><p>“Hello,” Sam said.</p><p>“I found your Bucky.”</p><p>“So he’s alive?”</p><p>“No, he’s definitely dead.”</p><p>Sam sighed.</p><p>“The problem is you’ll never summon him with that name.”</p><p>“Did he change his name?”</p><p>“Worse.”</p>
<hr/><p>The longer a ghost went without remembrance, the more they forgot themselves. Hungry and wild, they wandered the realm of the dead until the one month when the gates opened, and then they flooded out, to wreck havoc on the world. Without remembrance, they were nothing more than beasts of hunger. The hungry ghosts snatched food out of the mouths of the living. They ravaged the fields in desperate attempts to slake their hunger. They found their family when they were living, but in their hunger they only knew to take, not to give. Without remembrance, ghosts lost themselves.</p><p>Bucky hadn’t been forgotten, but he had lost himself all the same.</p><p>There had been a lot of experimentation, not just by the Nazis, but by all countries. And the experimentation hadn’t been limited to animals.</p><p>Bucky had been missing in action.</p><p>He had been taken.</p><p>Sam closed his eyes. The smoke wreathed the room, sweet agarwood. There was a plate of roasted chicken, before him, an offering.</p><p>He called for Bucky.</p><p>He called, and he called, but there was no answer.</p>
<hr/><p>“I lost him,” Steve said. “He walked away, and I couldn’t follow.”</p><p>Sam leaned over his table, staring at Steve. Natasha had sent many files. One of them had been for a Stephen Rodgers. Sam had read the file three times, looking at the thin body, mangled and dead. It looked nothing like the Steve that he’d seen in his office. It looked everything like the Steve. Desperate. Determined. “You tried,” he said.</p><p>He had tried. He’d gone into the chamber in hopes of becoming bigger, stronger. Somebody who could fight. Somebody who could protect.</p><p>He’d gone into the chamber and come out twisted and mangled and <em>dead</em>.</p><p>“I tried,” Steve echoed, pale and translucent. Agarwood was thick in the air. The light was dim, the room lit only by candles and the flickering embers on the tips of the incense. “I tried.”</p><p>“Steve,” Sam said. “I want to tell you what I know.”</p><p>Steve focused on him. A chill ran down Sam’s spine at Steve’s attention.</p><p>“Bucky was fighting in Germany,” Sam said. He thought of the information that Natasha had given him, the classified documents that she’d acquired for him. For Steve. “He was captured by a branch of the Nazis called Hydra.”</p><p>Steve waited.</p><p>“They took his name from him before he died,” he said. “His name, his soul, his memories. They twisted it.” He thought of all of the files on his computer. It made him nauseous to think about it. “He’s in the realm of the dead with you, Steve. But he’s…”</p><p>Hungry, like the ghosts who have been forgotten. Left for dead and never remembered. Little more than a ravaging beast of hunger.</p><p>Steve’s eyes were very wide, even as the smoke curled around his face. It gave his cheeks structure, gave him solidity. </p><p>“He isn’t Bucky anymore. That’s why you haven’t been able to find him.”</p><p>His voice was the whisper of the wind through spluttering candles, warm like agarwood smoke. “Tell me how to find him.”</p>
<hr/><p>He tried calling Bucky with Steve present. He tried calling Bucky without Steve present. He tried calling Bucky by the designation that had been given to him: WS-003. But nothing happened. The candles remained bright. Agarwood filled the room. There was no ghost passing into the realm of the living.</p><p>Bucky had been forgotten.</p><p>“Tell me how to find him,” Steve whispered, in Sam’s dreams. “Tell me how to find him,” he breathed through the rustle of the wind through the leaves as Sam went for a jog. “Tell me how to find him,” Steve pleaded, in the darkness of Sam’s office, as the candles spluttered and agarwood smoke curled in the air and Bucky still didn’t come, no matter how much Sam tried to call.</p><p>Natasha shook her head when Sam called. “They were very thorough,” she said, and her voice was perfectly calm. “Hydra knew what they were doing.”</p><p>But Steve insisted: “He’s still there,” he said. “He has to be.”</p><p>Sam took his clients, but he filled his free time reading through the files that Natasha had sent him, listening to the river churn with: “Bucky, Bucky, Bucky,” when he passed by, listened to the tap of the rain against the window and the howl of the wind.</p><p>He thought of Bucky, alone, name forgotten, nothing more than a grasp of hunger.</p><p>Hungry ghosts always wanted to be fed.</p>
<hr/><p>Natasha said, “A wedding feast.”</p><p>“Hear me out,” Sam said.</p><p>Natasha did not hear him out. “You want me to cater a wedding feast.”</p><p>“Weddings are events where people take on new names,” Sam explained, when Natasha had finished repeating ‘wedding feast’ a dozen times. It had been such a good idea when he thought about it too. “And he’s hungry. So we call him to a wedding feast, he gets married and takes back on his name, and Steve and Bucky are tied to each other…”</p><p>Natasha hung up on him. Twenty minutes later, he had the invoice for a wedding feast from a catering company in his email.</p>
<hr/><p>Steve was pale and ghostly in Sam’s office. Sam had laid out the feast—plums and pineapples and fresh fruits with sticks of agarwood before them, roasts and breads. A bowl of freshly steamed rice. A cake, with two pale men on the top of the tallest tier.</p><p>Steve stood, pale and ghostly at the altar. There were paper effigies of Steve and Bucky there already, painted with Natasha’s careful hand and delivered by courier. “Will he come?”</p><p>“If you call,” Sam said, because part of being a medium was confidence. He lit the incense and let the smoke wreath him and called. </p><p>For a moment, there was nothing. Just silence and the curl of agarwood smoke.</p><p>And then he could hear, Steve’s voice. “Buck,” Steve said, softly, like the spluttering of the candles. “Buck, I’m here.”</p><p>It was quiet, for a long time.</p><p>“I’m sorry I’m late,” Steve said. Thin and frail. He’d never made it out of the chamber. He’d never made it to the war. If he had, if he had.</p><p>Sam was used to what-if’s, in his line of work. Used to hearing them, used to speaking them across the realms. But this time he let the what-if catch in his throat. What if Steve had made it out of the chamber. Made it across the sea to the war. Would he have been able to protect Bucky? Would he have been able to pluck him from the Nazis, from Hydra? Would Bucky have lived?</p><p>Steve said, “I waited for you. I looked for you.”</p><p>Sam inhaled, deeply. Agarwood filled his lungs. The candles spluttered. One of them blew out. In the shadow, a shape began to emerge.</p><p>A hand took shape first—like a metal prosthetic. It curled around a plum, plucked it and held it in careful hands. Steve stared at it like he’d never seen the hand before.</p><p>“Bucky,” Steve breathed.</p><p>Sam had blood on his hands. It was what brought him closer to the realm of the dead, the ghosts that haunted him.</p><p>The metal had blood on it. Still, it held the plum so carefully.</p><p>The rest of the forearm took shape, and then the elbow, the bicep, the shoulder. The prosthetic faded into skin, pale and scarred, and then into lank dark hair and haunted eyes.</p><p>“Bucky,” Steve breathed, again. His hand covered Bucky’s, where it was holding the plum. “It’s you.”</p><p>Bucky’s mouth opened, and then closed, formless. He began to fade, again.</p><p>“Keep calling,” Sam said. He reached forward, his fingers catching on the paper effigies Natasha had made. They looked nothing like Steve and Bucky. They looked everything like Steve and Bucky. Thin and frail, worn and almost forgotten. But not quite. “Keep talking to him.”</p><p>Steve said, “Bucky, do you remember me?”</p><p>Bucky stared back. Slowly, he nodded.</p><p>“Do you remember yourself?”</p><p>Bucky only stared back.</p><p>Sam held the paper effigies. His hands were shaking. He could smell agarwood in the air. But Bucky wasn’t fading anymore.</p><p>Steve continued, “Will you come with me?”</p><p>Bucky nodded. “Who are you?”</p><p>Steve swallowed. “Steve,” he said. “I’m Steve. And you’re Bucky.”</p><p>His eyes closed. His brow furrowed. “Bucky,” he repeated. “I’m Bucky.”</p><p>“James Buchanan Barnes,” Steve said. “We grew up together. Do you remember…”</p><p>Sam swallowed. With each word, Bucky seemed to solidify in smoke. With each moment, Steve seemed to linger for longer before flickers.</p><p>Bucky said, softly, “I don’t remember you, but I’m meant to be with you.”</p><p>“Yeah, Buck.” Steve’s voice was thick. He turned to Sam. “Can you… can you do something?”</p><p>The paper effigies were still in his hands. Sam nodded. He said, “I can.”</p><p>He went through the vows carefully: to love and cherish. To have and hold. To stay together, through every life they would live. He said, “Steve, do you take this man to be your husband?”</p><p>He was smiling. “Yes.”</p><p>“Bucky,” Sam said to Bucky, “Will you take this man to be your husband?”</p><p>There was a long moment of silence. Bucky very slowly, said, “Yes.”</p><p>“Then take your name back,” Sam said. He thought of legal documents to be signed, but he didn’t have any. Just paper effigies and two ghosts, promised to each other. “You can be Bucky, again. Bucky married to Steve.”</p><p>Steve’s smile was bright. “Buck,” he said again.</p><p>Bucky’s hand curled around Steve’s. “I’m Bucky,” he agreed, and it sounded like he meant it.</p><p>“I pronounce you husband and husband,” Sam said. The incense curled in the air, wrapping around the two ghosts. When he lit the effigies on fire, the smoke curled around the ghosts as they leaned into each other, and Bucky’s eyes were closed as he said, “Steve. You’re here.”</p><p>And through the crackle of the flame, Steve whispered back, “I found you.”</p>
<hr/><p>Sam closed his eyes at the wedding feast, the physical remains untouched. In the back of his mind, he could hear the rustle of the wind. It sounded like laughter. It sounded like hope.</p><p>He smiled. That was one thing taken care of. Now there was just all of this food left.</p><p>Sam had picked this career to help.</p><p>He began to pack it into boxes. There was a homeless shelter down the block that could use the food.</p>
  </div><div class="fff_chapter_notes fff_foot_notes"><b>Author's Note:</b><blockquote class="userstuff"><p>thank you for reading! leave a kudos or comment if you enjoyed.</p></blockquote></div></div>
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